It doesn’t happen all the time, but it definitely happens.  I usually burn myself on the oven.  But, I have also burned myself on the stove and most recently on the handle of a pan that had been in the oven.

If I would slow down and pay attention I could probably avoid most of these burns, but I always seem to be rushing.  For example, if I would have turned the pan handle towards the inside of the stove (as I learned in 7th grade Home Ec), I wouldn’t have bumped my arm on the handle when I was reaching for something on the counter.  But I didn’t do that… so I got burned.

I learned this trick a couple of years ago from my Aunt May.  If my memory serves me correctly, she learned it from her daughter-in-law.  If you burn yourself put mustard on it.  Yes, mustard.  Plain old yellow mustard.  Well, I had never heard of that before but let me tell you, IT WORKS!

As you now know, I burned myself on Sunday while making dinner (I was recipe testing Chicken Cacciatore for the cookbook).  Not a huge burn but still quite painful.

So I shook up the mustard, squirted some in the sink to get rid of the “mustard juice” then squeezed some onto my burn.  Here is a time lapse…

Does dried mustard look pretty on your arm? No, no it does not.  Does it completely relieve the burn? YES!

Here is my arm today.  The burn itself will still have to heal but you will not feel the pain.

Here is the caveat: if you burn yourself bad enough to where it breaks the skin the mustard will really sting.  It is a double-edged sword because it will sting where you have broken skin but it still relieves the pain of the surrounding burn.  So, this is one of those difficult choices you will have to make for yourself.

Another downside if you have a super sensitive nose like me: everything smells like mustard until you rinse it off.  So, let’s say hypothetically that you are eating a little slice of lemon pound cake for dessert… it smells like mustard with each bite.  Not the greatest combination of flavors for dessert.

I hope you never have to use this trick because you slow down, pay attention and are cooking safely.  But if that doesn’t always work out, grab the mustard.